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Knowledge Nomads

Organizational Commitment and Worker Mobility in Positive Perspective

Harvard University

Margaret J. Shih

University of Michigan

The authors propose a new Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) perspective on the relationship between organizational commitment and worker mobility. Theories have long presumed that worker mobility and worker commitment are inversely related. Increased mobility, in dominant models of organizational commitment, comes at the expense of commitment to organization and, therefore, at the expense of the positive outcomes of commitment. We examine the potential for fostering organizational commitment amid worker mobility. We use the metaphor "Knowledge Nomads" to highlight that mobile workers are capable of building homes in organizations in the form of meaningful commitments to organization. This replaces a vision of mobile workers as itinerant wanderers, moving frequently with no commitment to organization. To reconceptualize worker commitment, worker mobility, and their relationship in positive perspective, the authors present findings from a theoretical review and from new empirical data. Implications of our findings for theory and practice, and directions for future research, are discussed.

Key Words: commitment • mobility • positive organizational scholarship

American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 47, No. 6, 791-807 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0002764203260210


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